


bite your tongue (we refuse to hear the truth)

by BlueCiffee



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, DCU, Justice League - All Media Types, Young Justice - All Media Types
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Depression, Dissociative Identity Disorder, Gen, Implied/Referenced Torture, Jason Todd Deserves Better, Jason Todd Has Issues, Jason Todd Has PTSD, Jason Todd Needs A Hug, Jason Todd is Red Hood, Jason Todd-centric, Kinda Dark, Mental Instability, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Self-Harm, Self-Mutilation, Tim Drake & Jason Todd Friendship, Tim Drake and Jason Todd are Siblings, Tim Drake is Red Robin, Time Travel, Young Justice - Freeform, dick grayson is not a good brother (YET), jason and tim's universe sucks, jason did what he had to do to protect tim from becoming jj, jason travels to the young justice universe, justice league - Freeform, like a lot, little jason will be called jay, more tags will be added, multi universe travel, that damned swedish villainess
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-28
Updated: 2020-12-28
Packaged: 2021-03-10 18:01:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,991
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28381365
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlueCiffee/pseuds/BlueCiffee
Summary: Jason Todd just wanted a normal day. A good day where he fought a few bad guys, killed a few scumbags and maybe visited the bookstore a few streets down from his Swedish safe house to get a new book that was hopefully in English.Instead, he got thrown into an alternate universe where his younger self still hadn't been captured in Ethiopia, who hadn't had to survive unspeakable atrocities and who's only issues was being disliked for not being Dick Grayson.Fun.
Relationships: Jason Todd & Jason Todd, Tim Drake & Jason Todd
Comments: 14
Kudos: 209





	bite your tongue (we refuse to hear the truth)

One moment, he was fighting a Swedish villain and her cultish followers. 

The next, he was fighting extreme nausea and vertigo as he free-fell through a chasm of flashing colours and burning sparks beyond his imagination. His insides inverting as he twisted one way and the other, attempting to find a bearing in the madness that now surrounded him.

Red Hood was furious as he tried to keep his measly lunch down, raging green flashing in the corner of his vision, as his helmet tried to create data from what it was recording when he realised that the damned Swedish villain had used her mysterious abilities. 

He stretched out an arm painfully, hopeful to find purchase beyond bursts of colour and spinning sensation that surrounded him, only to slam into a ground that had appeared after he had already crashed into it.

His body shuddered, something in his arm snapped violently as he had landed on it. His helmet cracked, only barely cushioning his fall to stop his head from permanent damage.

The floor was grey beneath his body. 

Jason’s mouth opened in a silent cry of pain, unable to move or breathe for several seconds. 

His breathing was hitched, stifled as one of his ribs punctured his left lung.

The white noise slowly drifted away, taking him away from the peaceful silence as he struggled to regain any semblance of feeling, recognising the pain as something similar to falling from the roof of a seventh storey building. He could hear the panicked shouts of young voices, but he ignored him, concentrating on breath and shoving the creeping green from the corner of his vision as it raged for what that stupid Swedish villainess had done to him.

He was going to skin her alive.

A hand touched his shoulder.

The Red Hood twisted his body from its splayed position, grabbing the stranger’s wrist hard enough to snap it as he forced himself into a sitting position and released a hidden blade from his sleeve, pushing it against the kid’s throat. His body cried in agony from the movement and his breaths became shorter, but he ignored it.

Kid?

Well anyone younger than him was considered a kid, sometimes even older individuals were too, but his red-haired hostage wasn’t even in his twenties yet. 

He blinked with his one good eye, blood dripping from his face smearing his vision. The large grey room he was in suddenly started flashing with red light, aggravating his headache even more. There were several other individuals, other then the boy he currently held hostage, holding defensive positions in a semi-circle around him, shouting orders to him. Jason ignored them in favour of figuring out what was going on. 

A yellow and red suited boy held deathly still in his grip, not daring to move for fear of the sharpened blade cutting any deeper into his neck. A small trickle of blood stained the suit already.  
Jason snarled viciously as one of them tried to get closer, a tall muscled boy in a black and red shirt. A superman symbol on his shirt. He hissed, his voice hoarse and breathless, “stay back or I’ll slit his throat.” When he found that Swedish villain again… oh, just the thought of what he would do to her made the green tinting everything he saw recede. “Where am I?” He asked roughly. 

A dark-skinned boy with blonde hair had his hands up reassuringly, “please let Kid Flash go.”

The scarred man chuckled darkly, “you wish.” Jason gestured with a nod to the flashing lights above him, “but someone decided to set off an alarm.” He snarled at the boy in his grip, “stand up.” The boy shakily rose to his feet, holding back flinches when the knife dug deeper, while Jason pulled himself up on his feet using the boy and sheer will. 

The green-clad girl’s aimed arrow followed his head as he rose. “Let. Him. Go.”

Under his helmet, Jason smiled at their naive tenacity. But he ignored her, turning his aching head to scan where he had landed. For a second, he didn’t recognise the large cavernous base. 

But then it clicked in his head. It wasn’t his fault; he hadn’t visited Mount. Justice since he was a kid under the name Robin. But the technology inside this version of the old base was even more ancient then he remembered. Almost stupidly, he asked. “Mount. Justice?”

The little heroes stiffened almost immediately. 

A young strong voice asked angrily, “who are you?”

Jason’s head snapped to the boy dressed in a traffic-light coloured green, yellow and red suit. He recognised the voice instantly; how could he not? Headstrong, eager and vicious. A product of his childhood, never enough.

How could Jason not recognise his own past self? Even if it was accompanied by people, he never knew he had met with as Robin.

He shifted slightly, taking weight off his bad leg. His entire body thrummed with agony. Jason finally acknowledged the half-circle of young heroes that faced him menacingly. He recognised a few, such as a young Zatanna, Aqualad’s uniform but not the boy, Roy Harper in an unfamiliar costume and a couple of others. A Martian, the girl with green arrows, some girl who was floating slightly surrounded in a purple glow, and not to forget the Kid Flash he was holding hostage.

But the most recognisable was a young Nightwing. 

Dick Grayson. 

And if the way his past-self held himself apart from the rest of the heroes, Jason knew instantly that even in this alternate universe (for there were far too many changes for this to be anything but that) little Jason was constantly not enough, never enough compared to his incredible, friendly and energetic older brother. 

Jason felt sympathy for the little boy who’d hopefully not have to go through the same horrors he had. 

He only hoped that this universe’s Batman was as hypervigilant and obsessively paranoid as he heard the almost silent ding alerting those who had been trained to recognise the sound that help had arrived through the zeta-beams. The Red Hood straightened, painstakingly lifting his head and speaking clearly as Batman and several leaguer’s burst into the room to apprehend him. “Batman, your parents died when you were a child. As did Nightwing’s.”

Batman slowed, recognising the threat for what it was. The mysterious stranger who had broken into their highly secret base knew his identity. His scowl was murderous, “who are you?”

“I know everything about you. Where you live, what you eat, what your biggest regrets in life are.” Jason paused, for dramatic effect. He knew that this unknown was killing the man, and he forced down a hysterical giggle. Oh, joy. “Unless our different universes don’t overlap as much as I believe.”

Nightwing blinked, “different universes?” asking what Jason had been leading them to. 

Kid Flash was still held hostage in Jason’s grip, though Wally West was evidently beginning to get antsy. Pain was overloading Jason’s nervous system, though he was pretty sure his right leg wasn’t broken so that was a relief. It was only due to the suit he wore underneath the cargo pants and leather jacket that held him, advanced technology that increased his speed, movements and strength. 

He nodded, feeling the helmet shift painfully on his head. It would be painful to take off, having dented against his skull and cutting into his skin by his damaged ear. His hearing loss on that side would probably be even worse after this. “I am an ex-Gotham vigilante. I visited this base when I was a child, but there was never a collection of young heroes at this time.”

Wonder Woman asked coldly, “and how can you be sure of this? You may not have been there during the times that they were gathered.”

The young Jason, further referred to as Jay for ease of understanding, scowled angrily. “Oh, and we’re just going to believe this? He’s obviously lying!” But his body movements could not hide his worry, spelling it out for Jason to see. 

Jason scoffed sadly, “Well, then there’s a big issue, kid. Because I’m future you and I don’t think either of us would like that.”

The shock was deafening. 

Batman recovered first, “you lie.”

This time, Jason could not hold back the psychotic giggle that escaped his throat, rasping in nature as his struggle to breathe grew. He really needed to get medical attention soon, because  
despite how incredible his suit was, it could not fully protect him from falling seven stories onto cold hard ground. 

The Gotham vigilantes and Gotham-born heroes stiffened visibly, straightening out there weapons immediately. Batman asked, “Joker?”

Another laugh escaped him, followed by a cough. His voice rasped, “oh no, no. We just spent… some quality time together.” Jason loosened his grip slightly on Kid Flash, the speedster letting out a small breath now that he had more room to move and the Red Hood’s blade wasn’t digging into his throat. “A long time.” The armed vigilante shrugged, “but that’s what happens when little Robins go off wandering by their little lonesome selves.” He turned to Jay, “stay with Batman, don’t go looking for her. She’s a monster who deserves to die.”

Jay asked, quieter now. But he still refused to believe this violent and unstable vigilante was his future self. Or his alternate universe future-self. “Who is she?”

“Your birth mother.”

“My birth mom is dead.” 

“She lied, or at least in my universe she did. My real mom sold me out to the Joker when I tried to save her.” Jason shrugged, “it’s far in the past, but that’s what really turned my life from bad to hellish. Everything has a turning point.” He cleared his throat, shifting from one foot to another with a pained groan. “Alright, I’m gonna be letting go of flashy here. Please don’t attack me, I don’t need my only functional lung to collapse from my broken ribs.”

Jason retracted the knife, and let Wally go, letting the boy sprint with super speed away from him. 

With a heaving breath, Jason raised his not broken arm and tugged on his helmet, wincing as it tore upwards through his skin as he pulled it off, letting the broken helmet fall to the floor with a clang. 

The gasp that resounded through the young sidekicks, even some of the less hardened leaguers, did wonders for his self-esteem. He chuckled breathlessly, “cheers, guys. Love the response. Like ouch.” 

But, it’s not like he could blame them.

At each corner of his lips, a wide Joker-created knife scar carved his face into what was likely supposed to be a smile similar to the joker’s, stopping about mid-cheek. The right side of his face was mostly covered in acid burns which travelled down his neck and below his uniform, the right eye milky with legal blindness. His other eye glowing with the green of the pit. Several other scars covered his face, but that was nothing compared to the major two. 

“I don’t believe you.” Batman said, despite seeing the obvious resemblance between Jason and Jay. Given a decade, Jason looked exactly what they would imagine Jay would look like (just without scars).

“Good.” Jason nodded, absentmindedly smearing blood across his face as he tried to stop his bleeding nose and other various injuries and cuts that they could see on his face alone. He had an amused smile on his face, wider than natural, and a psychotic glint in his good eye. “I’d be worried about you if it was any other way.” He saw black, not green this time, at the edges of his vision. This he could not ignore or push away with sheer will. “But I’d rather get the whole interrogation over with after I’m not suffering severe injuries.” He smirked, “not like you’ll have a choice.”

And promptly collapsed.

**Author's Note:**

> watcha think?
> 
> also has not been edited in the slightest, soz
> 
> will update this again one day :)


End file.
